Madison Snaps: July 15, 2008

A thicket of white-canopied tents and the flowing arteries of people between them filled Olin Terrace and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. for the 29th annual Art Fair Off the Square over the weekend, as seen in this photo shot Saturday from the rooftop of Monona Terrace. The downtown convention center on Lake Monona served as one bookend for this exhibition featuring scores of Wisconsin artists and crafts person, with the Capitol Square in the heart of the isthmus serving as the other. This was also, of course, the location of the Art Fair on the Square, a sprawling array of artists, along with a few food vendors, organized as a fundraiser by and for the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and is not in its fiftieth year.

Needless to say, this pair of summer traditions in town is also a magnet for photographers attracted to this gold mine of people-watching and other visual attractions. Reports and photo galleries of this year's fair on the Square have been published by Sara Ziemendorf (here), Gregory Humphrey (here) and many others (including here, here, here, and here), while images from both festivals were shared by Nataraj Hauser.

An insiders look by a vendor at the fair off the Square was published by Donna Ziegler of DZ Fantasy. "There were crowds of people at the show this past weekend, but they tended to be more 'lookers' then 'buyers,'" she explains. "Booths could be crowded with people, but after watching the stream of people for two days, it wasn't hard to notice that there weren't that many with purchases in their hands. My sales at this show, were down approximately 45% from last year. However, all things considered, by closing time on Sunday, I was still pleased with what I had sold, plus all the wonderful people I got to meet."

Nearly a whole year must pass until Art Fair on the Square returns to town next July, but the Wisconsin Alliance of Artists and Craftspeople, which organizes the fun off the Square, is returning to town for their Winter Art Festival